Friday Nights on PBS

Justice Department

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Attorney General Eric Holder sits down with Gwen Ifill to discuss the House vote to allow the speaker to sue President Obama, the backlog of immigration cases and the political fight over border crisis, death penalty reforms, voting rights and more in an exclusive interview.

The Justice Department announced a record $1.2 billion dollar penalty leveled at automaker Toyota. A four-year criminal investigation determined the car company had concealed unintended acceleration issues, a serious safety concern. That case could serve as a warning to General Motors, now facing its own federal investigation. Gwen Ifill talks to David Shepardson of the Detroit News and Joan Claybrook, president emeritus of Public Citizen.

The U.S. Senate narrowly rejected President Obama's nominee to oversee the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division due to Republican and law enforcement objections to the role he played in the defense of convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. In a statement, Obama called the defeat of Debo Adegbile a "travesty based on wildly unfair character attacks against a good and qualified public servant."

Attorney General Eric Holder called on 11 states to repeal "counterproductive" laws that bar convicted felons from "the single most basic right of American citizenship-the right to vote."
In a speech Tuesday at Georgetown University law school, Holder used his bully pulpit to note that 5.8 million people are prohibited from voting because of current or former felony convictions, including 1-in-5 black adults in Florida, Kentucky and Virginia.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday considers President Obama's nominee to enforce civil rights at the Justice Department. Debo Adegbile will need to overcome the opposition not only of voter fraud activists but also the Fraternal Order of Police.

We at the PBS NewsHour and Washington Week lost our dear colleague, Gwen Ifill, to cancer on Monday. During her life, she often was called upon to discuss journalism, barriers and how to burst through them, and sometimes just react to something fun.

Gwen Ifill was moderator and managing editor of "Washington Week" and co-anchor and managing editor of the "PBS NewsHour." The best-selling author of "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama," Gwen covered seven presidential campaigns and moderated two vice presidential debates.